Contact Filters in wMobile Desktop & wMobile Phone

Filters are used throughout the application to offer an easy to use mechanism to search for contacts based on predefined constraints. For instance, at some point you may decide that a certain criteria you are using to search for contacts is redundant. You’re scrolling through pages of results, thus wasting a lot of precious time.

Filters to the rescue! You are able to construct the desired filter without having to worry about misleading results due to incomplete criteria. Moreover, filters can be shared amongst you and your peers. Therefore, if one of your colleagues has built a filter you can use it as well if it is made “Public” or if he/she decides to grant access to it. Both, wMobile Desktop and wMobile Phone offer easy to use mechanisms to create and test such filters, ensuring that you will not create invalid filters due to lack of experience/expertise.

Contact Filters in wMobile Desktop

On the left hand side of the main user interface Window a Menu bar is available. This contains several options among which is our main target, the “Filters” section.

This section contains four separate subsections (highlighted) described from top to bottom as follows:

The first subsection contains four buttons:

“New” – By pressing this button a panel is opened in which you are able to create the filter.

“Edit” – The same behavior is available as for the “New” functionality with the observation that the panel will be populated with the data available in the currently selected filter. In order to use this functionality, you must first select a filter from the third subsection.

“Delete” – By pressing this button you delete the currently selected filter. In order to use this functionality, you must first select a filter from the third subsection.

“Search” – By pressing this button you enable or disable the search area/subsection.

The second subsection provides the possibility to look up filters owned by other users.

The third subsection enables you to search for certain filters based on filter name.

The fourth subsection lists filters based on the criteria resulted from the third and fourth subsections.

In order to save a filter, the expression and filter name are mandatory (not empty).

In order to create/edit the filter you have to use the highlighted sections to enter your filter criteria. These are meant to ensure that the expression is valid and also ease the process as you will not be forced to have any real expertise on query languages.

This panel also grants the possibility to assign the current filter to a different user. See combobox/dropdown in the upper right corner. It is loaded by default with the user currently selected in the previously described section.

In the upper highlighted subsection you are able to select a Contact Field and apply certain criteria to it by selecting one of the available operators and inserting a certain value in the “Value” input field.

Available operators and their corresponding query language criterion:

“Equal To” – " $field = '$value' "

“Not Equal To” – " $field <> '$value' "

“Greater than” – " $field > '$value' "

“Less than” – " $field < '$value' "

“Greater or equal” – " $field >= '$value' "

“Less or equal” – " $field <= '$value' "

“Begins With” – " $field LIKE '$value%' "

“Contains” – " $field LIKE '%$value%' "

“Does not Contain” – " $field NOT LIKE '%$value%' "

“Is empty” – " ISNULL($field, '') = '' "

“Is Not Empty” – " $field <> '' "

Note: At runtime the $field identifier is replaced with the Contact Field Name and the $value identifier is replaced with the value available in the “Value” input field. Not all fields require the “Value” input field to be populated, see “Is empty” and “Is Not Empty” operators.

In the right hand side highlighted subsection there are a couple of operations that can be performed on the current expression by pressing the buttons. These may be disabled or enabled in accordance to the current expression, in order to safeguard its validity.

Used to append the current criterion to the expression.

Used to connect a new criterion to the current criteria/expression.

The parentheses are meant to aid in designing more complex criteria. The Clear button is used to remove the current expression (start fresh).

Contact Filters in wMobile Phone

In the main menu of the application you should be able to locate the “Contact Filters”. If not, please contact your administrator to enable this functionality.

After selecting the “Contact Filters” from the main menu you will navigate to this page where you will be able to perform a multitude of operations on yours or your colleagues’ filters.

In the first highlighted subsection (from top to bottom) you are able to select a different user and check out his/her filters and also perform the same operations on them as on your own filters. Note: You will only be able to see filters for which access has been granted.

Below this subsection is the panel with the selected user’s filters. There is a checkbox in front of each filter’s name. This is used in conjunction with the two options available in the bottom subsection, respectively “Delete Selected Filters” (completely remove the checked filters) and “Add Filter Contacts to Group” (add the contacts resulted from the filter to a certain contact group).

On the right hand side of the filter’s name you have a link – “Edit” – this will redirect you to a different page where you will be able to adjust the filter criteria, name and/or owner.

In the bottom section there is an additional option which grants you access to the page where you will be able to create a new filter, respectively “New Filter”.

Similar to the panel available in the wMobile desktop version you are able to assign the new filter to a certain user (see the first highlighted subsection, from top to bottom).

Add criterion using the second highlighted subsection and construct the expression using the controls available in the last highlighted subsection (from top to bottom).

That concludes our Contact Filters guide for wMobile Desktop and Phone. For more information about wMobile, visit our product page.